Creativity and art have resurrected in Ireland, with increasing amounts of art-related entertainment and activities emerging from the gloom.

Art Clash is one of the latest creative initiatives on the Dublin art scene, offering a series of night classes, covering topics as varied as burlesque performance, stencil art, video performance art and clothes customisation.

Curator and watercolour artist Áine Macken is behind the concept: 10 events running from March to June, designed to make art accessible to everyone, to “shake up the concept of what an average art class should be and turn each attendee into an exhibited artist.” (more…)

Roxy Rhinestone as a naughty Snow White at the Dublin session of Dr Sketchy’s, March 31st 2012

If you’ve always wanted to try drawing and sketching but are put off by the dreaded “art”word and its expectations, why not try “anti-art”?

Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School was set-up in a dive bar in Brooklyn in 2005 by New York girl Molly Crabapple, a self-proclaimed “22 year old art school dropout” who had also worked as an art model herself.

“She was tired of the sterile classrooms and quiet settings, where the artists drawing had almost no interaction with the models and models were expected to be devoid of personality,” says Melissa Dowell who coordinates the New York branch.

Melissa explains that the ethos of the group is to hire as many alternative performers as possible; burlesque performers, fetish models, drag queens/kings, sideshow performers, contortionists, derby girls and more. Participants are a diverse bunch, men and women, seasoned artists and first-time drawers.

“Artists love it as an addition to their usual studies, where they can let their hair down and relax when drawing,” says Melissa. “We like to promote ourselves as an alternative, not a replacement, to traditional life drawing and we’ve found the community to be incredibly inclusive of our work.” (more…)